If you ’re wait for a beacon of clime hope in our dark , wretched worldly concern , look to Costa Rica . The land accounts for a fraction of the world ’s carbon emission , but something like 99 per centum of global ambitiousness to turn to climate alteration . cause in point : this week , its new president annunciate he project to make the rural area fogey fuel - free by 2021 .
The res publica first harbinger its intent go atomic number 6 electroneutral by 2021way back in 2008 , by relying on its tropic forests to remove carbon dioxide from the standard atmosphere . But explicitly bespeak that it wants to end the use of fossil fuels entirely takes things an challenging step further .
“ Decarbonization is the keen task of our contemporaries and Costa Rica must be one of the first land in the reality to execute it , if not the first , ” Carlos Alvarado Quesada said inhis first presidential speechon Wednesday . “ We have the titanic and beautiful chore of abolish the use of fossil fuels in our economic system to make way for the use of clean and renewable energies . ”
Latin American nation have been some of the most aggressive in terms of theircommitment to defend mood alteration , and Costa Rica is no exclusion . In many way , it ’s the loss leader ina part very concernedabout what the time to come carry .
The state has already essentially decarbonized its energy organisation , with renewables producing 99 percent of its vim needs . Ticos get their electricity alone from renewables for300 days last yearwith the huge bulk of that come from hydropower ( there are some number withdams and methane , but that ’s for another post ) .
But the fossil fuel banning is drive squarely at the large root of greenhouse gas emissions Costa Rica ’s got left : transportation . According to data compile by theWorld Resources Institute , transportation calculate for 35 percentage of Costa Rica ’s emission . Former United Nations mood chief and Costa Rican Christiana Figueres has called transportationthe nation ’s “ Achilles heel”when it comes to reducing emissions .
curtail fogy fuel usance and building out electric fomite rouse substructure is one of the sure way to make those emissions disappear . Nobel Prize - winning economist Joseph Stieglitz is with the Tico government and me on this one . Here ’s what hewrote in theGuardianthe same sidereal day Alvarado Quesada foretell the fogy fuel prohibition :
Because Costa Rica is already so green , a C tax would not raise as much money as elsewhere . But , because virtually all of the land ’s electricity is unclouded , a teddy to electric car would be more in force in subdue carbon dioxide emissions . Such a taxation could help Costa Rica become the first country where electric cars overlook , moving it still closer to the goal of reach a carbon - neutral economy .
To show what ’s potential , Alvarado Quesada arrived in San Jose at the head start of his presidency on a hydrogen - power bus , according to the Independent . The Costa Rican government also just gravel ashipment of new electric vehicles , showing it plans to take the air the walk .
Whether the government can completely cut fossil fuels out of the energy mix in just three years is n’t vindicated , with no details of any specific policies lay out yet . build up out charge infrastructure while retire gas - power car in that timeframe is a tall order , particularly withsurging in cable car ownershipand a huge internet of buses that locals and tourist alike purpose to criss cross the country .
It ’ll command moonshots from all countries , and for Costa Rica and its0.03 percent of spheric emission , the moonlight seem like a shipping untethered from fossil fuels .
Carbon EmissionsClimateClimate changetransportation
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